India, Rajasthan: Yesterday, Rajasthan Education Minister Vasudev Devnani on Sunday said that Nehru’s name has not been omitted but was “still there on page 91 and page 177”. It shouldn’t matter which chapters mentioned him as long as he was mentioned, Devnani added.

Page 91, according to a report, has just a one-line mention of the Nehru “presenting the objectives resolution in the chapter ‘Our Constitution’”. The report adds that on page 177, the only reference to Nehru is of him “having ‘inaugurated’ one of the steps on the course to Rajasthan’s unification”. Compared to older versions of the textbook, the report says, the mention of Nehru is “drastically” shorter even in the chapter dealing with the Constitution.

Earlier, Devnani, according to the Indian Express, had said that the government did not have a role in the new curriculum and that it was framed by the State Institute of Education and Training, an independent body. Speaking to the Indian Express, Professor K S Gupta, former head of the department of history at Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, denied any deliberate attempt to sideline Nehru and said: “We received instructions from the government to include certain aspects, but nothing on excluding anything.” Gupta, the report adds, is the “chief patron” of the Chittor wing of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh affiliated project on history called the Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana. These books, uploaded on publisher Rajasthan Rajya Pathyapustak Mandal’s website, are used by schools affiliated to the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education. (Agencies)